The Japanese written language is made up of three different types of characters. These characters are called hiragana, katakana and kanji. Hiragana and katakana are sort of like the Japanese alphabet. They are based on the vowels A, I, U, E, and O. I know those letters look familiar but the Japanese have a special way of pronouncing them! A as in car. I as key. U as in boo. E as in pet. O as in toe. If you can remember how to say them that way, you can properly pronounce any Japanese word! Look at the charts below and see different syllables all using the same pronunciation.
This is hiragana. Most regular Japanese words can be written this way. See how it's a bit curvy?
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This is katakana. While it sounds the same as hirgana, the symbols look different. This is used to write words that Japan borrowed from other languages. Like hamburger. In Japanese, it's written "ハンバーガー", using the katakana instead of hiragana.
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The above characters are what is known as kanji. Kanji started in China and made its way to Japan a long, long time ago. Now, Japanese people use it everyday, even children! You can see where some of the characters got their shape and meaning. Not all kanji look like the word they mean, but some of them do!